The Post and Courier of Charleston has been canvassing every lawmaker in South Carolina to find out where they stand on removing the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse ground. Their research found eleven state legislators expressing outright opposition to taking down the Confederate battle flag - nine members of the South Carolina House of Representatives and two members of the state Senate.

Digging a little deeper, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) found that 73% of those South Carolina legislators opposed to taking down the flag have ties to, are members of, and/or are supported by the Tea Party. Six of the nine state Representatives and both state Senators have relationships with Tea Party groups in the state.

In the Senate

On the senate side, the charge to keep the Confederate flag flying is led by state Senator Lee Bright (District 12 - Greenville & Spartanburg Counties). In a statement, Bright took a decidedly pro-Confederate approach, warning against “scrubbing historical symbols that memorialize states’ rights.” He added,

"In South Carolina, we know what this flag symbolizes: resistance against a federal, centralized power that far overreached its constitutional limits. It proudly symbolizes states’ rights and constitutional liberties, which many have fought and died for. Symbols can be used for many things by many people, but this does not in any way remove the true meaning behind a piece of our state’s history.

Today, the Confederate flag flies appropriately above a historical monument. If we choose to remove this flag, are we to also remove the names of Confederate officers from our roadways? Should we crumble all the Confederate monuments that dot the South Carolina landscape? Where does it end?"

Despite Governor Nikki Haley’s call for taking down the flag, Bright has been trying to stall legislative momentum to take the flag down, including announcing plans to introduce an amendment that would put the issue off until the next election. “I think there are a lot more people who are supportive of the flag that are just afraid of being called racist,” Bright commented.

Bright has made his position abundantly clear. His Facebook page flies a photo of the Confederate battle flag. His campaign is giving everyone who donates a bumper sticker that depicts the Confederate banner and says, “Keep your hands off my flag.” He even launched an online petition to keep the flag on the capitol grounds.

Bright is no stranger to the Confederate battle flag. He was a featured speaker at a February 7, 2013 “Guns Across America” rally where two Confederate battle flags were held aloft behind him – one featuring the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” snake and the other with an assault rifle and “Come and Take it” printed upon it.

Bright’s petition to keep the Confederate battle flag has circulated throughout Tea Party social media in recent days, and Tea Party outrage against taking the flag down is starting to boil.

Bright is joined in the South Carolina Senate by Sen. Daniel B. "Danny" Verdin, III (District 9 - Greenville & Laurens Counties). Verdin was the only South Carolina senator who stood up to speak against extending the special legislative session to debate removing the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds.

Verdin also has a relationship with the Tea Party, although it’s not as deep as Bright’s. At a Laurens County Tea Party event, for instance, he once declared “I love y’all” and has spoken to other Tea Party events.

In the House

On the South Carolina House side, leading the charge to keep the Confederate battle flag flying is Rep. Jonathon D. Hill (District 8 - Anderson County). Hill told the Independent Mail he will oppose any effort to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds and added that he was “pretty disappointed” with the governor’s “misguided attempt to combat racism.”

Hill’s Tea Party ties run deep. Before being elected in 2014, Hill was the founder and organizer of the Anderson TEA Party group. He has also spoken at Tea Party events, and is a member of the Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks national Tea Party factions.

The Tea Party group Hill founded is now actively campaigning to keep the Confederate battle flag flying. The Anderson TEA Party Facebook page currently features two petitions to keep the Confederate battle flag flying. The most recent is “Petitioning SC STATE LEGISLATORS - KEEP THE CONFEDERATE FLAG UP OR GET VOTED OUT” which Anderson TEA Party leader, Johnelle Raines, endorsed, writing “Please sign as ‘they’ need to know there are consequences for their votes!” The other is a “Keep the Confederate Flag!” petition from state Senator Lee Bright.

Problems with racism disguised as American history have infected the Anderson TEA Party. While Hill was still in charge, the Anderson Tea Party held “Constitution Classes” using videos and curriculum created by the far-right National Center for Constitution Studies (NCCS).

Founded by long-time John Birch Society supporter W. Cleon Skousen, NCCS had wallowed on the fringes of the far-right for decades, but was given new life and new-found respectability inside the Tea Party movement. The cornerstone of the NCCS training is Skousen’s book, The Making of America. Originally published in 1982, the 888-page textbook is filled with many disconcerting things. Take, for instance, the section entitled, “Principle 264: From the Fifteen Amendment.” In this section of the book, Skousen refers to the Civil War as “the War Between the States.”

In the pages of The Making of America, the discussion of the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, quickly devolves into a racist re-writing of history, where slavery is depicted as “humane,” where the children of slaves are repeatedly referred to as “pickaninnies,” where Abolitionists are the villains, and where Confederate leaders are praised for the way they treated their slaves.

Not to be left out of the South Carolina Tea Party Confederate bloc, William M. "Bill" Chumley (District 35 - Greenville & Spartanburg Counties) leapt to the defense of the Confederate battle flag. A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Chumley has argued that the issue of the flag doesn’t need to be discussed further, as it was decided in a 2000 compromise to move the flag from the Statehouse dome to the Capitol grounds. “This needs to go no further,” he told the Post. “It has been settled already. A compromise is a compromise.”

Chumley is one of the Tea Party’s favorite South Carolina legislators.

He received the highest House ranking from the Greenville SC Tea Party, and the second highest House rating from Palmetto Liberty PAC. He also received the endorsement of leaders of the Spartanburg Tea Party. Cibby Krell of the Spartanburg Tea Party endorsed Chumley on the group’s website, “I can’t vote for Bill in the upcoming primary or general election, but I would ask that those in District 35 beg him to stay in Columbia a while longer and continue the good work he’s begun.”

In the legislature, Chumley led the charge on bill to “nullify” ObamaCare. According to Chumley, “Mark my words, unless the precedent of defiance is set, the feds will try to force homosexual marriage on us while taking our guns AND our right to public prayer,” he declared on the Spartanburg Tea Party website.
Chumley is a fixture at Tea Party events. For instance, Chumley spoke at the Tea Party “Day of Resistance” Gun rally on February 23, 2013. He also spoke at a September 19, 2014 Spartanburg Tea Party Flag Rally in Woodruff, and a Laurens County Tea Party “Stop ObamaCare” Town Hall.

Like many local Tea Partiers, Rep. Michael A. Pitts (R-Greenwood, Laurens) has tried to deflect the issue away from the flag. “I think it’ll bring up talk about possibly moving it because that talk is just below the surface forever. But I don’t see that this incident has any bearing on the flag or the flag has any bearing on the incident. This kid had drug issues and mental issues and I think that’s the root of the problem. Racism exists no matter whether you try to use the flag as a symbol for that or not,” he stated. Like several of his colleagues, Pitts has spoken to Tea Party events, including the Laurens County Tea Party.

Rep. Craig A. Gagnon (R-Abbeville, Anderson) told the Post he sees no reason to take the flag down. “I don’t think the flag at the monument at the Statehouse was a part of the reason for doing these heinous murders,” he declared. Gagnon has been a featured speaker at Hill’s Anderson Tea Party group.

Rep. Mike Burns (R-Greenville), told the Post that the Confederate flag shouldn’t be taken down because people view it as a way to honor their heritage and their ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Burns was a backer of the Chumley’s ObamCare nullification bill, and has been praised by Tea Party Patriots, among other Tea Party groups.

Rep. Mike Ryhal, (R-Horry), a “favorite of the Myrtle Beach Tea Party” argued that the Confederate battle flag is “no problem.” “I don’t think it should be removed,” he told the Post. “It is a part of the South Carolina history. It is on the grounds. I think it’s fine where it’s at.” He also said removing the flag “wouldn’t change the way people feel about race.”

Another Tea Party favorite, Michael A. Pitts (R- Greenwood & Laurens Counties), has not yet made a public comment on the Confederate battle flag, other than to indicate he would oppose a bill to take it down.

Others in the House who expressed opposition but do not have clear Tea Party ties include, Rep. Christopher A. Corley (R-Aiken), Rep. Kevin Hardee (R-Conway), and Rep. Michael W. "Mike" Gambrell (R-Abbeville, Anderson). Among those, Corley has been the most vocal. “I’m for leaving it where it is — absolutely,” he said. “If I have to put 500 amendments on this thing to keep it there, then I will do it. This is a non-issue that’s being made an issue by certain groups trying to take advantage of a terrible situation.”

Since the Mother Emanuel massacre, Tea Party groups in the state have been relatively quiet. Perhaps they’re hoping people won’t remember that their statewide coalition invited a leader of the same white nationalist group that radicalized Charleston shooter Dylann Roof to their annual convention earlier this year.

Until IREHR exposed his scheduled participation, Roan Garcia-Quintana, a South Carolina white nationalist leader known as the “Confederate Cuban” was scheduled to appear alongside Tea Party leaders, members of Congress, and prospective presidential candidates at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition in January.

In addition to being a South Carolina Tea Party activist, Roan Garcia-Quintana is a national board member of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens. The Council of Conservative Citizens is the direct lineal descendant of the white Citizens Councils that fought to defend Jim Crow segregation during the 1950s and 1960s. Today, the Council of Conservative Citizens is one of the largest unabashedly racist groups in the country. According to Dylann Roof’s manifesto, it was the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens that drew him into the white nationalist movement and fueled his racism.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Koch Brothers-backed national organization that has been working with Tea Party groups, has abandoned operations in Oregon, according to new research by IREHR.

Without notice, the state organization was shuttered earlier in the year. The chapter’s website was shut off, and references to AFP Oregon scrubbed from the national website.
On May 15, AFP National Media responded to an IREHR inquiry with the first official statement on the closing. “Although we have many activists in Oregon, the organization no longer maintains a chapter in that state,” noted the email.

Even before the birth in 2009 of the Tea Party movement, AFP had a presence in Oregon. IREHR archives show AFP Oregon activity stretching back to late 2007. The group was active in issue advocacy, candidate development, and building local groups.
At the peak of AFP Oregon activity, the group had local chapters in Baker, Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Deschutes, Douglas, Harney, Klamath, Jackson, Jefferson, Lane, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Union, Wallowa, Wasco, Washington, and Yamhill counties. AFP National declined to comment on what, if any relationship exists between the national organization and the remaining local chapters.

AFP National also declined to comment on the reasons to abandon the state, but there are several possible explanations.

There is a glut of local and nationally-linked Tea Party groups in Oregon. In addition to dozens of unaffiliated local Tea Party groups still active in Oregon, FreedomWorks—a sometimes competitor with AFP—claims multiple local chapters in the state.

Additionally, the AFP Oregon had a leadership vacuum. In August 2011, the original Americans for Prosperity Oregon state director, former State Representative Jeff Kropf, left the organization. He presently serves as executive director of the Oregon Capitol Watch Foundation. Kropf was replaced by Karla Kay Edwards of the Cascade Policy Institute. Edwards moved to Missouri.

There may also have been concern about the downward spiral of some of the AFP Oregon local chapters. Consider for example, Americans for Prosperity - Marion & Polk County (AFP – Marion). The group has plunged into conspiracies about Agenda 21, promoted Islamophobia, demanded impeachment, supported far-right “We will not comply” activists, and more.

A video on the AFP – Marion website by Ann Barnhart was entitled “Stop Being Nice.” The video argues that “Western Civilization is dying. The Constitutional republic that is the United States of America is dying. Orthodox Christianity is dying…. The last 50 years has seen the satanic, Marxist infiltration of every aspect of our lives, and now we are seeing the hyper-aggressive infiltration of Islam, which is a political system very similar to Marxism in its ends. Satan is highly flexible. He uses atheistic systems such as Marxism, and he uses faux-religious systems, such as Islam. He doesn’t care what the means are of our destruction.”

In the fall of 2014, AFP - Marion changed the name of the group to Americas Founding Principles. Their website declared they were “Not an official AFP site. All opinions expressed herein are solely of the individual and do not necessarily reflect that of AFP.”

Whether organizational or political considerations were at play in the decision, Oregonians will not have Americans for Prosperity as intensively meddling in state politics in the near term. IREHR will continue to monitor the activities of other Tea Party-aligned groups in the state.

]]>web@irehr.org (Devin Burghart)Tea Party News and AnalysisWed, 20 May 2015 13:50:21 -0500Inside the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Conventionhttp://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/640-inside-the-south-carolina-tea-party-coalition-convention
http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/640-inside-the-south-carolina-tea-party-coalition-convention

The fourth annual South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention warred on the Constitution, and resurrected the patently false notions that President Obama is not a natural born American. Held at the Springmaid Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach on January 17-19, the event also displayed an abundant supply of Christian nationalism, racism, anti-immigrant bigotry and Islamophobia. It also drew more than its fair share of Republican politicians. More than a gateway to the 2016 presidential primaries, however, the convention served as a preview of Tea Party activism of the future—warts and all.

This was not a luxurious white-linen Koch brothers-inspired affair with free markets and oil money at its core. Instead this was a rough and tumble grassroots event, with more than 600 activists in attendance. When politicians took the stage the crowd swelled to 1,000. The crowd was older and strikingly white, in a state where nearly twenty-eight percent of residents are African American.

Tea Partiers packed the halls, mingled and networked, got training and ideas, and reveled in victories and bemoaned defeats. Attendees milled past vendors and Tea Party booths. One attacked the Common Core curriculum standards and featured the image of a rotten apple. Tea Party Patriots set up a “Pursue Your American Dream” booth where they interviewed speakers. The event was sold-out, but was streamed live over the Internet for those who couldn’t attend.

The primary underwriter of this gathering was Tea Party Patriots, headquartered in Georgia. Tea Party Leadership Fund, which grew out of the TheTeaParty.net group that organized the large guns rallies in 2013, was a mid-level sponsor. FreedomWorks, the D.C.-based Tea Party outfit was a lower-level sponsor. And the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity provided some minimal financial support. Nevertheless, this event was the largely a Tea Party Patriots affair.

It should be noted that the conference’s organizers did, in their own minds, strive to dampen down negative press. On December 17, IREHR first reported that a national board member of the white nationalist group, the Council of Conservative Citizens, Roan Garcia-Quintana, was scheduled to speak at this affair. After IREHR’s report was picked up by local papers and The Raw Story website, Garcia-Quintana’s photo and bio were quietly scrubbed from the website.

Then on January 14, IREHR detailed the bigotry of another speaker who works for an organization led by white nationalists. In less than a day, the speaker was removed from the convention website. The action was short-lived, however, lasting only 19 hours. And when IREHR sounded the alarm about a speaker who teaches a book that refers to black children as “pickaninnies” and that slavery was “humane,” the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition refused to budge for even a minute.

So the convention leadership knew that they had several bigotry-laden time-bombs in their midst, but they proceeded apace anyway.

The South Carolina Tea Party Coalition

Indeed, the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition talks of “our struggle to retain our heritage and very way of life,” in a defiant tone reminiscent of Southern segregationists of the Jim Crow era and white nationalists of the current period.

Further, on the opening day of the convention, Jim Dugan, the event’s organizer and head of the Myrtle Beach Tea Party, declared that “political correctness is not allowed on the grounds" and "we don't want a multicultural society.” Dugan’s Myrtle Beach Tea Party also boldly displays images of Tea Party racism many in the movement have vehemently denied. The group’s “Who We Are” webpage features a rally commemoration video containing Confederate Battle Flags and racist birther placards amidst a sea of yellow Gadsden flags.

The book Norton uses for NCCS instruction is Skousen’s The Making of America, refers to African-American children as “pickaninnies,” claims that the treatment of slaves was “humane,” argues that Abolitionists were the real problem, and contends that “the economic system of slavery chained the slave owners almost as much as the slaves.” Norton wasn’t the only speaker promoting Skousen’s work at the convention. Rev. Randy Riddle did an entire workshop on Skousen’s 5000 Year Leap on the first day of the convention.

During his speaking slot, Norton rehashed a speech he’s given to countless Tea Party gatherings over the past year. His talk, “The Language of Liberty” is a focus-grouped, PR-tested, re-branding of the Tea Party Patriots. Now, rather than talking about the Tea Party, they refer to “the Liberty movement.” Their tagline of “fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets,” has been replaced by “personal freedom, economic freedom, and a debt free future.” Noticeably absent from the new motto is any mention of the Constitution.

In fact, Tea Party Patriots spent much of the last year organizing to gut parts of the U.S. Constitution. This South Carolina convention featured a pair of speakers who called for an Article V Constitutional convention. One speaker, Lou Marin, runs a group that calls for repeal of the 17th Amendment.

Return of the Birthers

All the re-branding in the world won’t help the Tea Party dispel concern about racism in the movement if they keep providing a platform to birthers and other bigots like they did in South Carolina.

The convention crowd roared to their feet for real estate magnate, television personality, and birther racist Donald Trump. His efforts to mainstream racist birther conspiracies in 2012 made him popular in Tea Party circles. Not only did Trump spend years pushing the Obama birth certificate conspiracy, he financially backed the “birther posse” of racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He’s also implied that president Obama was a secret Muslim, that Obama was a backer of the Muslim Brotherhood. Trump praised the Tea Party, "You're great people," he said. Then he made another coded appeal to racism, referring to president Obama’s “other agenda.”

Trump’s talk bounced back and forth between far-right bullet points and raging narcissism. He plowed through ObamaCare, Benghazi, the IRS, and immigration in under a minute. "Why aren't we keeping people who add something rather than people who flow across the border," he declared. Then he claimed he would build the biggest wall on the border. In another minute, Trump moved through terrorism, Common Core, and the 2nd Amendment.

Trump wasn’t the only birther on-stage in Myrtle Beach. Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz, gave the Sunday morning invocation. Rafael Cruz is well-known for both his birther racism and his Christian nationalism. He’s snarled that Obama should “go back to Kenya,” and argued that “the average black” doesn't realize that having a minimum wage law was bad. Cruz preached of "restoration" and the "fight for America," while referring to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as “divinely inspired documents.” Rafael Cruz has also repeatedly preached a bigoted brand of Christian nationalism, calling the United States a “Christian nation;” and he was not talking about the demographic majority of the country.

Christian Nationalism

Rafael Cruz wasn’t the only hardcore Christian nationalist to grace the convention stage. One of the most glaring names on the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition convention was Jake MacAulay, the fast-talking Chief Operating Officer of the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC).

Despite the prosaic name, the IOTC is a theocratic, Christian nationalist outfit. Two of the three IOTC founders were members of the League of the South, a white nationalist secessionist group. And among the many toxic positions taken by the IOTC is the the belief that discrimination based on race is okay.

MacAulay told the audience how he was a “counterculture kid” but that he met Jesus in rehab. He forgot to mention to the crowd his post-rehab time leading an anti-LGBT hate group. MacAulay was at the core of the Annandale, Minnesota-based hard rock homophobic ministry, You Can Run But You Can’t Hide International. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the organization as an anti-gay hate group in 2012.

Much of his time onstage at the convention was then used to show a video of video of his wife and kids promoting the IOTC training courses they sell. MacAulay has written that the United States should be a theocracy, and he told the crowd in South Carolina that the separation of church and state a lie. He briefly laid out his theocratic view of the Constitution. Then he talked about the IOTC’s “American Clubs” the organization is trying to set up in high schools around the country to promote its theocratic position.

Islamophobia

The recent attacks in France and the advances made by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have no doubt animated anti-Muslim sentiment. The problem of Islamophobia, however, has rippled through the Tea Party from the beginning. And it was front-and-center at the annual South Carolina event. While several different speakers, including Frank Gaffney and Col. Bill Cowan, appealed to anti-Muslim sentiment at this year’s event, peak Islamophobia was reached on late Sunday afternoon.

David Bores, a former Woodstock, Georgia, Chief of Police (the hometown headquarters of Tea Party Patriots), took the stage and claimed that, “Seriously, Sharia law represents a very serious threat to our way of life, to our culture, and to our Constitution.” Further, “I submit to you that the problem is far worse than you just being kept in the dark. There is a purposeful effort to deceive us, to prevent us from knowing the truth of the threat that we face by Islam,” he added.

Then Bores declared that the “racial unrest” in Ferguson, Missouri was caused by ISIS. “Just take a look at what happened in Ferguson. We know the problems that existed there this summer, the racial unrest. But what was stoking some of that racial unrest? Well, ISIS was there. Did you know that? Did you know that there were ISIS sympathizers there? Did you know that there were other Islamic groups there, helping to stir the pot,” Bores stated. He came to this conclusion by conflating all American Muslims with ISIS. His evidence: a list of 45 faith-based groups active Ferguson that included seven Islamic organizations.

Bores made no effort to differentiate between violent Islamist militants and all Muslims. Quite the opposite: He went so far as to attack all of Islam as inherently violent. Citing Islamophobic sources like Pamela Geller and ACT for America, Bores also created a convoluted story about “subversion,” “stealth jihad” and “creeping sharia.” Dipping deep into his bag of tricks, he even tried to claim that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, was a stealth agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Bores attacked multiculturalism and warned of “the Islamization of our culture.” “Watch out, they’re going to change our religion. The blending of Islam and Christianity … is a movement designed under dialogue,” he said. And Bores told the crowd to “resist local concessions to Islamic practices.” Leaving no doubt of the incendiary nature of his talk, Bores added, “a speech like I have been giving today is considered hate speech.”

The Tea Party Claims and Attacks MLK

With his leather vest and big black cowboy hat, retired law enforcement officer “Wild Bill for America” Finley has made a career out of promoting racism and Islamophobia to Tea Party groups. A YouTube sensation, Finley’s videos include numerous anti-Muslim monologues, not to mention posts where he refers to Ferguson protestors as “thugs” and expresses fantasizes of “race war.” Finley told this South Carolina crowd how he “wants to make liberals scream” and how Tea Partiers need to be “special forces” that are “hitting back” with “unconventional strategies” against “enemies of freedom.” He called for “stomping all over the politically correct nonsense” and doing it “as publicly as possible.”

Then, Finley claimed ownership of the legacy of the martyred civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “How appropriate that we are here right at the Martin Luther King holiday,” he began. “Martin Luther King had a dream, and it was a good one — a day when skin color wouldn’t matter anymore. A time when character would be more important than skin color.”
“But when we look at what’s going on in America today, it’s pretty easy to see that Dr. King’s dream got hijacked,” Finley added. “I believe racism in this country would’ve died out a long time ago, except that some people figured out that racism can be very profitable — both financially and politically.”

“And now, those who are most vocal about Martin Luther King being their hero seem to be the most race-driven people in America. The left have mastered the art of turning every issue into a skin-color issue, character be damned,” he said.

“Manufacturing racism for political purposes is a big business in the USA, and manufactured racism has been used to hurt the Tea Party from Day One. There’s no doubt in my mind that if Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today the liberal left would spit in his face because he would be such a threat to their political agendas.”

“We are the people who practice Dr. King’s dream. It is the Tea Party where people are not judged by the color of their skin, and it’s Tea Party Americans who believe that character still counts,” said Finley.

“So today, I am officially announcing that the Tea Party is taking Martin Luther King away from the liberal left,” Finley said. “And to you race-baiting promoters of division and hatred, you’re not getting him back until you renounce your shameful skin-color politics and start practicing the politics of character.”

Several other far-right speakers at the convention tried to co-opt the legacy of Rev. King’s family. Rob Maness, who lost a 2014 race for the U.S. Senate while receiving backing from the Tea Party, spent much of his talk attacking immigrants. In his anti-immigrant remarks, Maness shamefully regurgitated the nativist lie that Coretta Scott King was against “illegals.” Maness also boasted of his recently formed Tea Party political action committee, GATOR PAC.

Lauren Cooley had been an undergraduate at Furman University in Greenville. There she had earned a reputation as a racist by attacking the campus appearance of one of MLK's aides, Jesse Jackson. Now of Turning Point USA, a group created to push a Tea Party agenda on college campuses, Cooley used her talk to rejoice in her campaign against the Civil Rights leader, calling Jesse Jackson a "race baiter." She also bragged about having brought racist columnist Anne Coulter to Furman, and of her campaign to bring a "creation scientist" to that university. Though she didn’t mention it in her talk, Cooley also brought Larry Pratt, the far-right militia and death squad proponent who leads Gun Owners of America, to campus.

Black Speakers and Language of White Supremacy

There were four African-American speakers among the nearly forty people who took the stage at the convention: Deneen Borelli, Kevin Jackson, Katrina Pierson, and Ben Carson.

Deneen Borelli, director of outreach for FreedomWorks, turned to well-worn attacks on civil rights leaders and organizations. As she’s done many times before, Borelli spent much of her speech attacking the NAACP and Rev. Al Sharpton as her way of establishing her "challenging the black liberal establishment" bona fides. Borelli is also the author of Blacklash: How Obama and the Left are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation. Borelli bragged about FreedomWorks challenge to Speaker Boehner's leadership. She called it a win. She concluded her talk by shilling for the oil and gas industry.

Katrina Pierson, a failed Texas Congressional candidate who now works for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, was limited to her introduction of Senator Ted Cruz.

Conservative radio host Kevin Jackson, like Borelli and Pierson, attacked civil rights leaders. In his talk, Jackson defended Voter ID, attacked undocumented immigrants, and defended the shooting of Michael Brown (who he called "thug"). In person, on the radio, and through his books, Race Pimping: The Multi-Trillion Dollar Business of Liberalism, and The BIG Black Lie: How I Learned The Truth About The Democrat Party, Jackson serves as an apologist for Tea Party racism, a paid operative to attack Civil Rights groups and spin false equivalencies. Jackson ended his convention speech calling the Congressional Black Caucus "Race pimps" and peddling his book of same name.

Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon turned potential presidential candidate, took the stage to a raucous, cheering crowd. Some waved “Run, Ben, Run” plastic signs. Echoing a convention theme, Carson took the stage and told the crowd, "I'm not politically correct. Nor do I intend to become politically correct." In the past, Carson has referred to Obamacare as the "worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery," and argued that progressives are turning America into “Nazi Germany.” Carson concluded his convention talk by dividing the country into "Pro-American vs Anti-American" Americans, and received a standing ovation.

Politicians Join in the Swamp

Into this swamp of discredited birtherism, anti-civil rights propaganda, and Islamophobic scare-mongering, dropped a bevy of other political figures seeking to curry favor. Though none have yet declared their candidacy, there was buzz about possible presidential runs by several speakers, including Senator Ted Cruz, former Senator Rick Santorum, and Dennis Michael Lynch. Tea Party politicians who took the convention stage were Congressmen Jeff Duncan (SC-3), Mick Mulvaney (SC-5), Tom Rice (SC-7), Jim Bridenstine (OK-1), and Louie Gohmert (TX-1).

Outside of a rare moment of candor when Rep. Mulvaney had to explicate why he bucked the Tea Party insurrection and voted to retain John Boehner as Speaker of the House, these figures generally delivered bland stump speeches. They were there to lend their credibility to the event, put butts in the seats, and energize battle-weary troops.

Conclusion

This Tea Party convention provides a new look at the Tea Party movement. Educated and socialized within their ranks to a deliberately bigoted set of ideas, Tea Party activists are also interested in a range of political figures—and not all of them come from the accepted Republican Party leadership ranks. The focus on the Constitution is mediated by the desire to amend it and throw out some “small d” democratic measures—such as the direct election of U.S. Senators. More, the current focus on Islamophobic topics is not just a foreign policy outlook, but instead a stand in for a broader anti-immigrant appeal.

This Tea Party movement is not yet disappearing completely into the Republican Party, but remains a semi-autonomous movement that must be reckoned with. And the results of this just past gathering will be felt for some time to come.

Even before President Obama entered the East Room of the White House to give his speech outlining a series of executive actions on immigration reform, some, though not all, national Tea Party factions were whipping up a Tea Party nativist frenzy.

“This is by far the most serious communication I have ever sent,” wrote Steve Eichler, executive director of the 1776 Tea Party (aka TeaParty.org), in an email to supporters. “Everything is at stake. Illegals will bankrupt our social, economic and financial systems. Terrorists will just blow it all to pieces. They'll all be in our backyards in a matter of weeks, even days, if we don't step up and demand action,” he warned.

That type of feverish nativism shouldn’t be a surprise coming from Eichler, who is also the executive director of the anti-immigrant vigilante group, the Minuteman Project. Eichler’s email went on to predict “open rebellion” and “chaos” if Republicans don’t withhold funding for Obama’s executive order.

Echoing Eichler’s terror hysteria was one of the initial activists who helped shape the Tea Party movement. Eric Odom, who now works for the Tea Party faction, Patriot Action Network, also put forward the notion that executive action on immigration would somehow lead to terrorists destroying America.

"What makes it so dangerous is that Obama's announcement says to all of our enemies that now is the time to invade our nation's borders. We're no longer talking about innocent women and children riding trains to our borders then crossing with the hopes of gaining access to our welfare system. We're talking about ISIS and other evil groups who want to embed individuals here with the plan of doing harm.

Essentially, our President just made a proclamation that puts American lives, and the security of our nation, directly at risk. Obama said to the world that if they can get across our borders, we will not send them home. We will not enforce our immigration laws.”

Grassfire, the parent company of the Patriot Action Network, added “with his amnesty announcement in just a few hours, Obama will unilaterally defy the will of the people and congress --becoming a threat to liberty.

Eichler, Odom and Phillips weren’t the only Tea Partiers to take such an inflammatory stand. Their sentiments echoed those of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a favorite among Tea Party nativists, who warned that President Obama's executive actions and general "lawlessness" on immigration could lead to "ethnic cleansing."

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) also joined the fray, contending that President Obama’s immigration executive order is “declaring war on the American people and our democracy.”

Tea Party Nativist Battle Plans

“This is truly an emergency. There’s not a moment to lose,” wrote Tea Party Patriots co-founder, Jenny Beth Martin, to members on Wednesday. While other Tea Party groups are busy inflaming nativism sentiment, Tea Party Patriots are crafting a plan to scuttle any immigration reforms.

The first step: Tea Party Patriots plan to “melt the phones to stop amnesty” having their members contact Congress to register opposition.

The next step is to flood Congressional offices. According to Martin, the group “must deploy our thousands of local affiliates to Congressional offices all across the country, demanding that they cut off all funding from this order immediately.”

However, they plan on using those remaining local groups to get the new Congress to defund anything relating to immigration reform. Kevin Broughton, a spokesperson for Tea Party Patriots, noted, “We expect [the new GOP majority] to use the power of the purse to defund amnesty, especially those—and there were many—who ran against it.”

Nativism Divides Tea Party

Not all national Tea Party factions are in agreement with the Tea Party Patriots plan. Obama’s move on immigration has further revealed a growing fissure in the Tea Party movement over the centrality of nativism. Curiously, while Tea Party Patriots, Patriot Action Network, and the 1776 Tea Party were rushing to be more xenophobic than the next faction (and fundraising off the issue), some Tea Party factions tried to dance around the issue, while others stayed conspicuously silent.

Though many members of the FreedomWorks social network were outraged by the president’s announcement on immigration, the organization chose to duck the issue.
FreedomWorks completely sidestepped the topic of immigration, choosing instead to concentrate the organization’s message on tried-and-true Obama-bashing. In a pre-speech press release, FreedomWorks president, Matt Kibbe, took a page from the GOP establishment playbook, sticking to the line about the president being an “emperor” and railing against the “expansion of executive power.”

Kibbe added, “The president’s announcements tonight have nothing to do with immigration. This fight has to do with whether or not we are a country with laws and a separation of powers designed to protect the will of the American people from the arbitrary actions of Washington insiders.”

As other Tea Party groups have dug in for a massive fight around immigration, FreedomWorks appears fixated on getting Congress to let the Export-Import Bank expire. As IREHR noted in Tea Party Nationalism, many in the Tea Party movement have been suspicious of FreedomWorks because of their unwillingness to wholeheartedly embrace nativism.

Unlike all the other factions, Tea Party Express hasn’t made a peep about the issue. That could be because the group is hoping not to call attention to the pro-immigration reform stance that Tea Party Express co-founder, Sal Russo, took in a piece for Roll Call this spring.

Russo’s commentary piece, “Conservatives Need to Fix the Broken U.S. Immigration System,” called for an approach remarkably similar to the one proposed by the president. “We need to make the 11 million people who are here illegally obey the law, pay taxes and come out of the shadows. We have to get them right by the law in exchange for legal status, but not unbridled amnesty,” he wrote.

In the past, these disagreements have caused strain between various organizations in the network that makes up the Tea Party movement. This is the first major test of these policy differences in years, and Tea Party organizations should be held to account for their positions.

Expect the quiet caution initially expressed by Republican leadership to vanish if the Tea Party successfully mobilizes anti-immigrant sentiment. Given the vitriolic nativist tone already circulating in Tea Party circles, and the fusion of nativism with hatred of the first African-American president, mobilization by Tea Party nativists could make the ugly rancor and racism expressed during the passage of Obamacare look polite by comparison. At the same time, if supporters of human rights stand strong for immigration reform and actively combat Tea Party nativism, it could protect immigration reform gains for the long-term and split the Tea Party.

Despite the valiant efforts of unions, immigrant rights and progressive groups, nativists successfully led an effort to repeal hard-fought legislation to provide driver cards to undocumented immigrants in Oregon.

IREHR examines the behind-the-scenes political committees, uncovers the network of anti-immigrant and Tea Party groups in the state, and follows the money to find out how nativists were victorious in Oregon. We also look at what the nativist victory portends for national immigration reform in 2015 and beyond.

Dissecting the Nativist Victory in Oregon

In last Tuesday’s general election, Oregon voters rejected a bi-partisan law that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain driver cards. Oregon’s State Ballot Measure No. 88 which would have provided “Oregon resident ‘driver card’ without requiring proof of legal presence in the United States,” was defeated 66.27% to 33.73% according to unofficial election results from the Oregon Secretary of State.

National commentators have continually asserted that the 2012 election results made comprehensive immigration reform “inevitable.” How, then, did this popular piece of common sense legislation become so reviled?

The answer: anti-immigrant groups and Tea Party nativists saw an opportunity out west, and they pounced.

For the last three decades, the anti-immigrant establishment has parlayed state-level electoral victories during the mid-terms into national efforts to block humane immigration reform. In 1994, California voters approved anti-immigrant Proposition 187, which would have prohibited undocumented immigrants from public education and social services had it not been found unconstitutional. In 2004, Arizona passed the similarly nativist Proposition 200. This year, Oregon joins that list.

Like the efforts in 1994 and 2004, state and national nativist groups saw the bill as a vehicle to reclaim momentum for the anti-immigrant crusade. The Oregon campaign was not only part of a strategy to block all pro-immigrant legislation at the state and local level, it was part of a well-worn strategy of using state victories to change the national conversation in a more nativist direction.

Given the history of anti-immigrant ballot measures tilting the national conversation, the nativist victory in Oregon does not augur well for immigration reform in the near term.

Behind the No on Measure 88 campaign

The Oregon saga began on May 1, 2013, when Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber signed into law Senate Bill 833, a bipartisan measure that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain a card, allowing them to legally drive in the state.

Supporters of the bill celebrated on the streets during the annual pro-immigrant May Day celebrations around the state. They had successfully campaigned for a law that they argued would make streets safer by getting people to learn the rules of the road and get insurance. Driver cards could not be used to vote, get government benefits, board a plane, or buy firearms.

The popular bill passed the Oregon House with 38 “yes” votes (including 5 Republicans), 20 “no” votes, and 2 representatives who did not vote. In the state Senate, the bill passed with 20 “yes” votes (including 6 Republicans), to just 7 “no” votes and 3 senators who did not vote.

Almost immediately, two different committees came forward to push an effort to repel SB 833, Protect Oregon Driver Licenses and Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR).

Oregonians for Immigration Reform

The public face of the nativist campaign was Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR). The group is both a 501(c)4 non-profit organization and an Oregon-registered Political Action Committee.

The current incarnation of Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR) was established by Jim Ludwick, Frank Brehm and Elizabeth Van Staaveren. Two of the three founders of OFIR have been disturbingly close to racist groups.

For the past decade, retired McMinnville resident, Elizabeth Van Staaveren, has almost single-handedly kept the doors of a North Carolina racist anti-immigrant group open. Federal Elections Commission campaign finance reports show that, from 2005 to the present, Van Staaveren contributed an astonishing $43,500 to the racist group, ALIPAC. William Gheen, the founder and sole employee of ALIPAC, has stated that violence may be necessary to “save white America” and made many other racist remarks. Van Staaveren has been, by far, the largest contributor to the racist group.

The ties between racist groups and Oregonians for Immigration Reform are not just individual, like those of Van Staaveren and Brehm, they are organizationally embedded.

Since 2001, OFIR has been one of the core local groups of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR celebrated the relationship in its 2001 annual report, “FAIR is pleased to announce a new addition to our growing movement, Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR). OFIR’s leaders, Jim Ludwick and Frank Brehm, are capable, dedicated activists whose credentials include lobbying in Washington against the expansion of the H-1B program.”

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the oldest and most notorious organization in the modern anti-immigrant establishment. The group has a long legacy of racism. FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has made numerous racist comments, such as "I've come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that." FAIR has also accepted more than $1.2 million in contributions from the Pioneer Fund, a group established to promote eugenics and “race science.”

OFIR’s current president, Cynthia Kendoll, has re-affirmed the group’s cozy relationship with FAIR. In fact, since becoming president in 2013, Kendoll has regularly participated in FAIR events, including attending the 2013 “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” conference, and a September 2014 FAIR border event.

She also spoke at an October writer’s workshop of nativist The Social Contract, a publication edited by white nationalist, Wayne Lutton. Like Lutton, Kendoll has expressed her brand of nativism in cultural terms. She told Willamette Week that, “We are told all the time that people come here and want to become Americans. I don’t think they’re interested in becoming U.S. citizens. It’s just an organized assault on our culture.”

FAIR isn’t the only part of the national anti-immigrant establishment OFIR toiled alongside. During the height of the nativist vigilante craze, the group worked with the Minutemen.

In the mid-2000’s, OFIR partnered with the Oregon chapter of the nativist vigilante Minuteman Civil Defense Corps to harass day laborers around the state. OFIR also participated in a rally with Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project in Eugene, Oregon. As David Neiwert documented in his book, And Hell Followed With Her, in 2009 three members of a Minuteman group (one of them from Oregon) brutally murdered Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, at their home in Arivaca, Arizona.

To further their political work promoting anti-immigrant ballot measures and candidates, OFIR formed the Oregonians for Immigration Reform PAC in December 2003, according to Oregon Secretary of State. But records show that prior to 2013, the OFIR PAC had little sign of activity. The last time it engaged electorally was during the 2008 general election it supported Measure 58, a failed ballot measure that would have prohibited teaching public school student in language other than English for more than two years. Measure 58 was supported by OFIR, FreedomWorks, and Oregon Taxpayers United. In the 2013-2014 period, the OFIR PAC raised just $23,758.

While it’s still unclear how much money flowed into OFIR’s 501(c)4 operation, the amount their PAC declared suggests that by-and-large the nativist campaign was not a big-money media campaign. It relied substantially on the core of nativists OFIR built across the state and the network of Tea Party groups in the state.

Protect Oregon Driver Licenses

While OFIR was the public face, the behind-the-scenes work, including getting the measure on the ballot, was done by the OFIR-tied political committee, Protect Oregon Driver Licenses.

The committee, Protect Oregon Driver Licenses, was formed just nine days after SB 833 was signed into law, according to records on file with the Oregon Secretary of State. It was formed by Lyneil Vandermolen, of Tualatin, Oregon. Vandermolen is a board member and vice president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform.

Vandermolen has also been involved in the Tea Party movement. She is member of the Patriot Action Network, a national Tea Party faction known for Islamophobia and militia mongering, and was a member of the now defunct Oregon Tea Party. She is also listed as a leader in the far-right coalition, Grassroots for Liberty, which serves as the Oregon base of the Texas Tea Party voter suppression outfit, True the Vote.

Vandermolen’s cause extends well beyond narrow public policy concerns over DMV regulations. Like the Tea Party faction she joined, Vandermolen has publically expressed a virulent brand of nativism, telling The Oregonian that there is a cultural difference between the European immigrants of the past and the illegal immigrants of today, because "Europeans worked hard to be American, to learn English." Today, she said, the motivation to assimilate is missing. "Latinos, they're the biggest group, but also the Muslims. These cultures," she said, "are interested in assimilating us."

Committee finance records show that Vandermolen is aided by Lori Piercy. The Rainer, Oregon conservative activist serves as a campaign finance reporter preparer for numerous conservative groups in the state, including the Oregon Liberty PAC and the Conservative Republican Defense Fund. In 2007, Piercy was recalled by voters from her position as president of the Clatskanie People’s Utility District, after allegations of mismanagement emerged.

Also listed are the three “chief petitioners” for the citizens veto measure: Richard F. LaMountain, Kim Thatcher, and Sal Esquivel. Two of the three are state legislators. All three have far-right ties.

Richard F. LaMountain, served on the board of directors of Oregonians for Immigration Reform between 2009 and 2013 and was an OFIR vice president. He has also been a regular contributor to the white nationalist publication, Middle American News. LaMountain has also written letters to the editor to Willis Carto’s racist and anti-Semitic tabloid American Free Press. In late 2014 he started writing for the white nationalist website, VDARE.

The third chief petitioner was Sal Esquivel a six-term state representative in Oregon’s 5th District, representing Medford. Rep. Esquivel is a Tea Party nativist. He’s been a feature at Tea Party events in Southern Oregon. He’s repeatedly introduced anti-immigrant legislation. He even shared the stage with noted racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio at a nativist “Stand with Arizona” rally to support the controversial “papers please” law, SB 1070.

To finance the initial effort to get the measure on the ballot, Protect Oregon Driver Licenses raised $10,935 in cash and $128,340.98 in in-kind contributions. Unlike in Arizona’s Proposition 200 campaign, where national anti-immigrant groups were forced to spend $410,500 to pay for last-minute signature gatherers when local efforts sputtered, in Oregon much of the money to pay for signature gatherers came from one man—the state’s Koch brother wannabe.

Loren Parks, a Nevada resident who owns a medical equipment business in Aloha, Oregon, funded much of the signature gathering. Like the billionaire Koch Brothers, Parks was also born in Wichita, Kansas. While Parks doesn’t have as big a bankroll as his fellow hometown oligarchs, Parks has a long history of financing conservative causes in Oregon. In fact, the Oregonian noted that Parks has given more money to electoral campaigns than any other individual in state history.

Even before there was the Tea Party movement, Parks was a significant contributor to the national Tea Party faction, FreedomWorks. Common Cause noted that between 2004 and 2008, Parks donated more than half a million dollars to FreedomWorks. In 2008 and 2013, Parks also funded anti-union ballot initiatives in Oregon.

To kick start the anti-immigrant ballot measure, Parks made in-kind contributions totaling $98,173.58 to Protect Oregon Driver Licenses between August and October 2013, according to campaign finance records. Much of the in-kind support was for signature gathering.

Another big early donor was Brian Puziss of Portland, Oregon. He contributed $2500 in the early months of the petition gathering drive. Puziss was a financial supporter of Tea Party PACs and Tea Party candidates, including the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, the Our Country Deserves Better PAC – TeaPartyExpress.org, the Ted Cruz Victory Committee and Matt Bevin for Senate.

Protect Oregon Driver Licenses Committee

After signatures were verified and the measure was on the ballot, the initial committee, Protect Oregon Driver Licenses, was discontinued and a new one, the Protect Oregon Driver Licenses Committee was formed on January 4, 2014.
The new committee included Piercy as secretary, and several familiar names. The committee’s directors are listed as OFIR president Cynthia Kendoll and OFIR board member, Lee Vasche.

Retired Salem real estate agent, Kate Jaudes, is listed as the Protect Oregon Driver Licenses Committee alternate transaction filer. Jaudes is an activist with the Tea Party-aligned Americans for Prosperity, serving as communications coordinator for the local AFP chapter. She was named AFP’s “activist of the month” in May 2011. Her husband, Paul Jaudes, is head of the Marion County chapter of AFP.

While national nativist groups didn’t dump big money into Oregon like they did previously in California and Arizona, that doesn’t mean that nativists didn’t provide support for the ballot measure campaign during the run-up to the election.

FAIR’s allies also chipped in to help fund and aid the Protect Drive Licenses Committee.

Ben Zuckerman, the UCLA professor who helped lead the Tanton-backed nativist attempt to take over the board of the Sierra Club, contributed $200. In addition to working with the nativist front-group Sierrans for US Population Stabilization, Zuckerman has worked closely with national nativist groups. He served as vice-president of Californians for Population Stabilization, is a member on the statistical oversight board of NumbersUSA, and sat on the advisory board of another nativist front-group, Progressives for Immigration Reform.

Deborah Rohe, wife of long-time Tanton confederate John Rohe, contributed $200 to the committee. John Rohe currently serves as vice president of the Colcom Foundation, the largest funder of anti-immigrant establishment groups in the country. John Rohe even wrote the fawning Tanton biography, Mary Lou and John Tanton: A Journey into American Conservation. Rohe dedicated the book to his wife, Debbie.

Another notable out-of-state nativist contributing to the Protect Oregon Driver Licenses Committee was Paul Nachman. The Bozeman, Montana nativist activist contributed $3220. Nachman is a regular contributor to the white nationalist website VDARE, where, among other things, he has referred to the burning of Korans as an “educational demonstration.” Nachman also runs the anti-immigrant group Montanans for Immigration Law Enforcement, and nativist front-group, Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization. He’s also a blogger for the nativist group Californians for Population Stabilization.

The Protect Oregon Driver Licenses website was created by longtime nativist activist and Tanton ally, Fred Elbel, the principle force behind Sierrans for US Population Stabilization, and head of the nativist group Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform. (Elbel also did the latest website for Oregonians for Immigration Reform).

Impacting the National Conversation

The cacophony of anti-immigrant leaders attempting to use the Oregon victory to declare a national mandate for their type of immigration policy is growing.

Each time the anti-immigrant establishment achieved an electoral victory at the state level, they have used it to claim a mandate for further federal immigration restriction. While some immigrant rights advocates hold out hope for President Obama providing some form of administrative relief to undocumented immigrants, supporters of human rights should also prepare for an entirely predictable nativist surge following the election results.

So-Called Black Conservatives Flop at NAACP Convention.

Deneen Borelli, a staff member of the Tea Party group FreedomWorks, promised to “lead a Black conservative surge at the annual NAACP” convention taking place in Las Vegas this past July.

Borelli, who claims status as a contributor to FOX News, has appeared on the Glenn Beck show and a host of other right-wing TV productions. She has been declared by the American Spectator magazine as “America’s New Rosa Parks,” a declaration somewhat akin to Glenn Beck claiming the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Borelli’s chief complaint of the moment about the NAACP: she has not been invited to speak at an NAACP convention.

The actual convention, the NAACP’s 105th, gathered more than 1,000 delegates who were elected at the local branches, hundreds and hundreds more were members who served as alternates and observers. They welcomed the new president and CEO, Cornell William Brooks with cheers and standing ovations. Delegates voted in their regional meetings for new regional officers and in plenaries on a string of resolutions concerning voting rights, civil rights, criminal justice, labor and the economy. Of particular note to IREHR, NAACP delegates voted unanimously in favor of a resolution, written by our advisory board member Michael Enriquez, supporting fast food workers drive for $15 an hour and union representation. They attended continuing legal education seminars, luncheons for health and labor rights, and dozens of other meetings and gatherings.

In all of that, NAACP members saw little sign of Deneen Borelli and her FreedomWorks team at their convention. This writer looked for leaflets or other omens of invite, but there were none easily visible.

FreedomWorks did have a small booth in the exhibit hall, tucked away next to booths for the Justice Department and the Social Security Administration. Another Tea Party-aligned group, Americans for Prosperity, also purchased a booth in the hall. Over at the FreedomWorks table, Borelli and her cohort C.L. Bryant appeared to spend more time antagonizing NAACP members than gaining any support.

Borelli did hold one meeting at the same hotel convention center at the same time as the NAACP. So did a convention of pet food vendors. But if the pictures Borelli posted of her meeting ring true, there were a bevy of black conservatives at the front of her room set to speak, two or so black people in the back, and a couple of dozen white people in the audience listening. Borelli did manage to use the convention backdrop in her video of the event, but she had no presence inside the convention and the “surge” she promised never appeared.

FreedomWorks is a dangerous organization that aims to undo everything that civil and human rights activists want to get done. But this time, FreedomWorks looked silly, and the NAACP came on strong.

The Tea Party loss in Mississippi last week resurrected the oft-repeated notion that the Tea Party movement is dead, at least electorally if not completely. Once again, that notion misses the big picture. The Tea Party is still batting over .500 in contests where national groups have endorsed a primary candidate.

National Tea Party groups (including FreedomWorks, Tea Party Express, Patriot Action Network, Tea Party Patriots, and Tea Party Nation) have endorsed (80) eighty candidates in thirty-two states. Fifty-five were running in primaries for the House of Representatives. Twenty-five ran in Senate primaries. Those endorsed candidates have won (30) thirty primary races, lost twenty-three races, and qualified two for a run-off later this summer. That puts the Tea Party endorsed candidate batting average at .556 (a nearly 56 percent winning record), according to data collected at teapartycandidatetracker.com.

Senate

In 2014 Tea Party endorsed candidates in Republican primaries for U.S. Senate have won ten races and lost ten races, which puts them at .500 (or 50 percent).

Included in those numbers are races in seven states where multiple candidates were endorsed by different Tea Party groups. For instance, in Nebraska, both Ben Sasse and Shane Osborn were endorsed by different national factions (Sasse won). Put another way, in ten of the fourteen states that national Tea Party groups have endorsed a candidate in the primary, they have been victorious.

There are more Senate races to come. Three Tea Party endorsed candidates await primaries, and there are two endorsed candidates who aren’t even on the ballot in 2014.

House of Representatives

In House primaries, Tea Party endorsed candidates fared even better. To date, Tea Party endorsed candidates have been involved in primaries in twenty-two states. They have won twenty primaries in fourteen different states, lost thirteen races in thirteen states, and qualified for an upcoming runoff in two other contests in Georgia.

Setting aside the two runoff elections, that puts their batting average at .606 (or nearly a 61 percent win record). This number does not include victories like David Brat over Eric Cantor in Virginia’s 7th congressional district, as none of the national Tea Party factions endorsed Brat in the primary.

Unlike the Senate contests, there were no contests were Tea Party candidates clashed with each other. There are still twenty primaries yet to come that include Tea Party endorsed candidates.

Often when Tea Party endorsed candidates lose on Election Day, they have succeeded at tilting the conversation to the far-right. The point of distinction between Tea Party and “establishment” candidates has been of style rather than substance in more than one case.

The alleged killers liked Ron Paul, the FreedomWorks Tea Party, they listened to far right propagandist Alex Jones, and supported a third party candidate for Governor. They were deeply embedded in the far right, and their entire story needs to be told. Here is a beginning.

“The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it,” wrote 31-year-old Jerad Miller on his Facebook page at 4am on June 7. The next day, Jerad and his wife, 22-year-old Amanda Miller, left the apartment of a friend where they were staying at about 4:30am. The two headed off with a shotgun, pistols, and two bags filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and survivalist gear.

At around 11:30am, the couple walked up to two police officers having lunch at a Las Vegas strip mall pizza buffet. One of them shouted "This is a revolution!” as Jerad Miller walked past and shot one of the officers in the back of the head with a handgun. The officer died instantaneously. The other officer tried to return fire, but both Jerad and Amanda turned on him, shooting him several times and killing him.

The shooters then took the weapons and ammunition off of the dead officers. Over the body of the officers they draped the Gadsden flag – the iconic Revolutionary War symbol made ubiquitous in recent years by the Tea Party movement, and a swastika. On the body of one of the officers they pinned a mini-manifesto that declared, “This is the beginning of a revolution.”

From there, the couple made their way across the street to a Wal-Mart, entering through the front door. Jerad Miller raised a handgun into the air, fired a round and told the people to “Get out. This is a revolution. The police are on the way.”

Over at the checkout area, Joseph Robert Wilcox, was waiting in line when the pandemonium broke out. Wilcox had a conceal-carry permit and was armed. He confronted Jerad Miller but was gunned down from behind by Amanda Miller, who was pushing a shopping cart and “lying in wait.”
Chaos erupted and people started rushing for the exits. One of the shooters shouted “we’re freedom fighters!" as the two headed to the back of the store. Minutes later, SWAT units arrived on the scene, and engaged the shooters, wounding Amanda Miller.

When finally surrounded by police, in an apparent suicide pact, Amanda Miller shot her husband multiple times, killing him, then pointed her pistol to her own head and fired.

How does a couple go from getting married in an Indiana cornfield to lying dead on the floor of a Wal-Mart in under two years? Though the full story is still being pieced together as more evidence becomes available, an initial Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights investigation into the horrific incident found that the “revolution” Jerad and Amanda Miller hoped to ignite by killing police officers was animated by the drumbeat of far-right Tea Party ideology and informed by previous run-ins with law enforcement.

After Rejection By Cliven Bundy: The Revolution

In the months before the shootings, Jerad Miller took to the internet to publicize his building rage. "We can hope for peace. We must, however, prepare for war," Miller wrote on June 2. "To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished through bloodshed." That same day, he declared that in order to restore “freedom” to the United States, the “best men” would strike for “a free and just world with our blood, sweat and tears as pavement,” he said on June 2. “There is no greater cause to die for than liberty,” he wrote on May 2. “I will willingly die for liberty.” On March 25, he wrote: “I stand firm in my convictions and stand prepared to die for them. … Come for me, free me from your slavery. Give me the death a hero deserves.”

The fact that “patriots” and militia members pointed their guns at Bureau of Land Management officials during the standoff with far-right rancher Cliven Bundy may have been enough to convince the Miller’s that the “revolution” they wanted was at hand.

"Ranch war almost under way," Jerad Miller posted to Facebook on April 9. "[W]e need to watch this closely, could be the next Waco and start of revolution.” Later the same day, Miller posted I will be supporting Clive Bundy and his family from Federal Government slaughter. This is the next Waco! His ranch is under siege right now! The federal gov is stealing his cattle! Arresting his family and beating on them! We must do something. I will be doing something.” The next day, he noted that the two of them had been to Bunkerville to engage in the standoff.

Not long after the couple made their pilgrimage to Bundy's ranch, Miller noted on Facebook that he and his wife were asked to leave because of his criminal past. “I was out there but they told me and my wife to leave because I am a felon. They don't seem to understand that they are all felons now for intimidating law enforcement with deadly weapons. So don't tell you that they need people. We sold everything we had to buy supplies and quit our jobs to be there 24/7. How dare you ask for help and shun us dedicated patriots.”

Steeped in Tea Party Ideas

From the plethora of online postings, it appears that Jerad Miller’s introduction into the far-right began with Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign. In fact, nearly all of the videos posted that he liked on his YouTube account for more than a year were videos about Ron Paul. In total, more than 50 of the 303 videos he liked were about the Paul campaign. He later added Senator Rand Paul, and several candidates running on the far-right Independent American Party to his Facebook likes.
From there, it appears that Jerad Miller dug deeper. He found the Tea Party. Jerad Miller’s “likes” included the national Tea Party group FreedomWorks, and Tea Party-aligned groups Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation.

He also liked militant Tea Party off-shoots like Three Percenter Nation and Operation American Spring. He expressed an affinity for gun groups, including the NRA, Nevada Firearms PAC, and the National Association for Gun Rights. On February 8, he even posted a photo of himself standing alongside former Sheriff Richard Mack, who promotes the Posse Comitatus idea that county sheriffs represent the supreme law of the land.
Jerad Miller shared, reposted, commented on, and added a multitude of far right issues, everything from conspiracies about gun confiscation, Benghazi conspiracies, Islamophobia, Climate Change denial, birther racism, and much more.

Though much less material has been uncovered from Amanda Miller, she also “liked” Ron Paul, and Freedom Works, in addition to various paranormal groups, Stop Amnesty, and Drudge Report. She used her YouTube channel to show support for videos with titles like “Citizens Can Shoot Police,” “Shooting Cops,” and “When Is It Okay To Shoot a Cop?”
On YouTube, Jerad Miller subscribed to video channels from the racist Birther Report, far-right figure Alex Jones, David Loy VanDerBeek.

Alex Jones and the Millers

A constant source of inspiration for the Miller’s was far right media mogul Alex Jones. Over the years, in addition to promoting a slew of outlandish conspiracy theories, Jones has indulged in vicious racist anti-immigrant rhetoric, promoted anti-Semitic con artists, defended Holocaust deniers, and attacked civil rights leaders. He is an equal opportunity bigot.
Beyond sharing material from the Alex Jones InfoWars website on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, and sharing many different Alex Jones videos on YouTube, both Millers were registered on the InfoWars website. Jerad Miller once promoted the site to his friends by saying, “get informed or get stupid.”

On May 28, 2012 Jerad Miller posted to the InfoWars website another warning of murderous acts to follow. In the article, “The Police (To Kill Or Not to Kill?)” he explained that he was on probation for selling marijuana. He refused to go back to jail, “I would rather die than be labeled as a criminal. Let them call me a terrorist. Let them label me as a fanatic, some nut job. I know the truth, and so does God. I’m sure our founding fathers were labeled as such. Call me a radical, i will wear that badge with pride. Because America is a radical idea! Brought up upon radical thinking. That each man has constitutional rights that are God given and cannot be taken away no matter what. I refuse to stand by and let them dictate my life… So, do I kill cops and make a stand when they come to get me? I would prefer to die than sit in their jail, when I have done nothing to hurt anyone.”

After the names of the attackers were revealed on Monday and Millers’ reverence for Alex Jones revealed, Jones went ballistic. On his Monday radio show, Jones denounced the shooting a “false flag” operation by the U.S. government. Jones said that his “mind exploded with hundreds of data points” proving that the incident was staged when he first read about it on Sunday. “Tens of millions of people are flooding here, hundreds of thousands a month, pouring over the borders, being given driver licenses in California to pull the lever to ban guns,” Jones warned. “We are in the middle of a globalist revolution against this country right now. And my gut tells me that the cold-blood degenerate evil killing of two police officers and a citizen in Las Vegas yesterday is absolutely staged.”

The Millers and David VanDerBeek

Another source of inspiration for the Millers was Nevada far right activist David Lory VanDerBeek.

In March 2013, Jerad Miller “Liked” the video “The Next American Revolution” by David Lory VanDerBeek, a Nevada gubernatorial candidate for the Independent American Party of Nevada (the Nevada branch of the Constitution Party) and frequent speaker at local Tea Party and other far rightist events.

In that video, VanDerBeek ran through a slew of conspiracy theories, 9/11 Trutherism, birther racism, and much more. He even called President Obama “The supreme Uncle Tom of all time… He’s absolutely a tool of the New World Order.” VanDerBeek also declared “The unfortunate truth is that if the police really buy in to the New World Order, and into the illusion of their power, then I guess they will go back to following the Constitution when enough of them are dead.”

That same week, Jerad Miller posted to twitter that “Police confiscated my wife's guns without a receipt and without a warrant” and on YouTube described how police visited their home after Amanda Miller purchased the guns, due to it being a violation of Jerad’s parole to have them in their apartment.

Jerad also tried to make the case that though he was a felon on parole, he should be allowed to own guns. “If you are not behind bars, you have the God given right to own and carry a gun, anyone who tells you different is a criminal and wishes to violate your God-given right and wishes to assert their power over you,” he posted to YouTube.

Just weeks before, VanDerBeek published a YouTube rant entitled “IF OBAMA SENDS POLICE TO TAKE YOUR GUNS, EXECUTE THEM.” Those words sound eerily similar to the writings of Jerad Miller in the days before the shooting. In the video, VanDerBeek posited a conspiracy that Obamacare was being used to go after gun owners, and that the time was approaching to start shooting law enforcement officers.

“The time has come for me to give you direct executive advice: lie to the doctors, lie to the teachers, lie to the police, lie to the judges, lie to the IRS. You’re at war. The government has declared war on good Americans. Stop cooperating with them. Obama and Congress have declared war on you, and Obama has declared the US a battlefield. Obama considers gun owners to be enemy insurgents. So you need to stop cooperating with their tyranny,” he declared.

VanDerBeek further threatened law enforcement officials, “if you die violating the rights of innocent citizens, you have received your just rewards. You police, you federal agents, you DHS, you TSA, you who serve this Obama, this tyrant, knowing that you’re breaking the law to get a paycheck and fat benefits and retirement, you will eventually begin to die and I will have no compassion for you. I will not feel sorry for you or your families. Your execution by the people will be your final paycheck. So if you want this fight, suck it up, soak it up, and bring it on.”

On May 13, 2013 Jerad Miller wrote a post telling VanDerBeek that he and Amanda were coming to Nevada to join the fight, “I will see you soon, I will be in ﻿touch. My wife and I are planning to move to Nevada soon to help you in your resistance to tyranny. This is proof you are making an impact. Do not quit, my wife and I under your authority to receive training to protect you at all costs. We will take bullets to protect you to the best of our ability. We love you brother and all those who seek liberty.”

Those plans were put on hold temporarily when Jerad Miller was forced to return to jail in late July for seven weeks after violating his home detention.
At the beginning of January 2014, Jerad and Amanda Miller packed up their truck and drove across the country to move to Las Vegas. That month, the couple was interviewed by federal law enforcement officers after they threatened to “shoot up” a DMV office.
Days before the Bundy standoff kicked into high-gear, Jerad again noted on Google+ that they “just moved to Nevada to support David Lory Vanderbeek for governor.”

On May 7, Jerad Miller wrote on the Free Patriot website, “David Lorry Vanderbeek the Independent party candidate will win the election for Governor. We the people of Nevada are fed up! Time to secede from the criminal federal government. Its time to invoke the declaration of independence and restore our rights to life, liberty and happiness.”

After the Las Vegas shootings, VanDerBeek told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he met the Miller’s several times during his campaign events, including when he spoke at the Bundy ranch. He described the couple as “polite and friendly” and noted that the Millers did not seem to display signs of being violent or desperate. VanDerBeek also attempted to distance himself from his own violent rhetoric, claiming that “he has emphasized that violence would not be tolerated.”

Comparisons to Other Recent Shooters

The Millers shared several things in common with Dennis Marx, the Georgia “sovereign citizen” who was killed in a clash with law enforcement on June 6.

Both Marx and Jerad Miller faced legal problems over marijuana distribution. Marx was headed for jail, Jerad Miller had recently been released.

Marx and the Millers were big gun supporters.

They all targeted law enforcement and the judicial system.

Marx and the Millers all planned elaborate assaults on courthouse buildings. Neither succeeded.

While the Millers may have picked up much of their far right ideology online, Marx appears to have come across his the old-fashioned way, at gun shows and local events.

Jerad Miller’s Criminal History

Problems in Washington State

In 2001, he was convicted of taking a motor vehicle without permission and harassment.

In February 2001 he was convicted of third-degree theft.

In June 2001, he was convicted of third-degree malicious mischief.

In April 2002, he was found guilty of assault with intent to cause injury.

In August 2002, he was convicted of obstructing a public officer and DUI.

After moving to Indiana, Jerad Miller’s trouble with the law continued

On June 16, 2007, Jerad was formally charged with preliminary charges of criminal recklessness, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In November 2007, he pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness, a Class D felony. He received suspended sentences, receiving credit for time served. He also took the court's suggestion and went to Wabash Valley for counseling and education, according to court records.

On Oct. 10, 2007, his bond was revoked and he was returned to jail.

On March 15, 2009, he was arrested and later charged with misdemeanor battery. A jury found him not guilty after a one-day trial in September 2009, according to court records.

On Nov. 26, 2010, police arrested him on allegations of dealing marijuana, possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance.

On Feb. 7, 2011, he was booked into the jail accused of strangulation battery.

On March 1, 2013, he was arrested on a warrant in Dearborn County. He was twice accused of violating his in-house arrest in 2013, according to jail records.

With the fight over Obamacare slowly receding, the Tea Party Patriots are mobilizing for a new effort to dramatically re-write the Constitution, beginning with a serious call to repeal the constitutional amendment that led to the creation of the Internal Revenue Service and the income tax, the 16th Amendment. As implausible as it seems, the effort is already picking up steam in the states. Along the way, they’ve picked up some strange bedfellows and turned some allies into enemies.

Field reports, event recordings, and new documents obtained by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights show a growing national effort by Tea Party groups and allies to significantly rewrite the Constitution. This new report outlines the significant organizational players, the various strategies, and the rifts exposed in this latest Tea Party offensive.

The Tea Party-instigated “final battle for Obamacare” led to a seventeen day shutdown of the federal government and risked collapsing the U.S. economy. But in the end, they failed to defund the Affordable Care Act. The government re-opened. Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling. Having led the charge, the Tea Party took the brunt of the blame for the stinging defeat. It was the second time the Tea Party had created a crisis around the debt-ceiling, and the failed strategy took a toll this time. Public opinion slumped back to pre-IRS “scandal” days.

Other groups were still reeling from the rout, but one national Tea Party faction began laying groundwork for a shocking new strategy. Though it’s received virtually no national media attention, the Tea Party Patriots have been preparing their national staff, local coordinators and members to wage war on the Constitution.

The plan is as simple as it is diabolical: it starts by amping up a push for Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment. When that fails, organize at the local level to get the states to call a Constitutional Convention.

The scheme has been brewing inside the Tea Party Patriots inner-circle for some time, but the relentless campaign against Obamacare diverted energy and distracted from the cause. But having exhausted the economy hostage-taking strategy over the debt ceiling, electioneering growing wearisome and unnecessary having reshaped the GOP in their image, and with other groups already trailblazing on the issue, they’ve decided to roll-out the strategy in 2014.

Ironically clinging to the notion that they are guided by “Constitutional principles,” the Tea Party Patriots actually plan to chip away at the bedrock cornerstones of the Constitution. Left unchecked, their plan could trigger a Constitutional Convention. Such a move could destabilize the nation and eliminate everything from the 14th Amendment’s equal protection and birthright citizenship protections, to the 17th Amendment’s direct election of Senators. It could also throw open the doors to other hard right fantasies, and would put at risk everything from women’s reproductive health, labor rights, progressive taxation, and the separation of church and state.

But first up, the old far-right punching bag, the IRS.

“It's Not Rocket Science:” The Tea Party Plan to Repeal the 16th Amendment

The Tea Party Patriots will use the April 15 Tax Day to ramp up activism by their locally affiliated groups to abolish the 16th Amendment. On April 8, the Tea Party Patriots held a national conference call to lay out their push to abolish the 16th Amendment. Though it has received little attention, the effort has been more than a year in the making. Lost in the coverage of the cavalcade of legislators on stage that day was the agenda that Tea Party Patriots co-founder, Jenny Beth Martin, laid out in her afternoon presentation. Repeal of the 16th Amendment was at the heart of the Tea Party Patriots fifth anniversary celebration on February 27.

Martin outlined three key issues for the Tea Party Patriots. In addition to yet another call to repeal Obamacare and the outline of a plan to massively cut government spending, Martin devoted much of her talk to the roll-out of the Tea Party Patriot effort to repeal the 16th Amendment. “Our next task sounds like a hard one. Some of you may even think it’s impossible. It’s not. We will amend the Constitution, and replace the tax system with a fair, fixed, flat rate.”

Following a year-long assault on the Internal Revenue Service over the phony scandal related to the granting of non-profit status to Tea Party groups, Martin appealed to the tried-and-true American hatred of paying taxes, while simultaneously casting the Tea Party as victims of political persecution. “An obvious benefit to doing this is that we will dump 67,000 pages of oppressive IRS regulations. And we will replace it with a tax that is simple and fixed – one that will save families and business billions of dollars a year in tax preparer fees alone. It stops the IRS from political targeting and silencing speech. It takes away many of the special interests on K Street, and frees us from politicians who only serve their own interests, rather than the people’s. There’s more to it: this will reduce taxes. And when we reduce taxes and reduce government spending, we all have a chance to earn more money and businesses are able to hire more people. We free people and the economy to do incredible things," she declared.

Martin also told the small celebration at a ritzy Washington D.C. hotel that, “When this movement started, I was going through personal financial crisis myself. My husband and I found ways to keep the roof over our family’s head without a government bailout.” Her emotional declaration of self-sufficiency in the face of financial pain may tug at the heart-strings of Tea Partiers, but it's a lie.

Long before President Obama was elected, Jenny Beth Martin and her husband wrung up a staggering tax debt. To keep that roof over their family's head, they turned to government for a bailout in the form of bankruptcy protection and tax relief. As noted in Tea Party Nationalism, Martin's route to the Tea Parties includes a bumpy collision with tax collectors. According to court documents, Martin and her husband owed over $680,000 in tax debt, including over half a million dollars to the Internal Revenue Service, when the pair filed for bankruptcy in August of 2008.

Revving up the assembled troops, Martin concluded, “To amend the Constitution. To revamp the tax code. That’s a challenge we are willing to accept, and we will win. That loftygoal starts on the ground with us. We need to teach our family and friends that it can be done. We need to make the case to our state legislators and to Congress. It’s not rocket science. And we will do this." Martin’s February announcement should come as no surprise to anyone closely watching the Tea Party. Back in 2011, Tea Party Patriots National Support Team Constitutional Coordinator Bill Norton and then Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler participated in a Harvard symposium on a Constitutional Convention.

“Our next task sounds like a hard one. Some of you may even think it’s impossible. It’s not. We will amend the Constitution, and replace the tax system with a fair, fixed, flat rate.”

In February 2012, Meckler and his co-founder Jenny Beth Martin published their book Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution (Henry Holt and Co, February 14, 2012). The book lays out their 40-year roadmap for revolution, including a plan for Constitutional Amendments followed by Constitutional Convention(s).

Martin and Meckler's plan first sought to scrap the Founder's delicate balance embodied in the Constitutional Convention provisions. “So we need a constitutional amendment to change the process of amending the constitution to permit single-issue constitutional conventions to be called where only certain topics may be considered…A new amending procedure would allow voters to bypass Congress and hold conventions without fearing damage to the fundamental fabric of our governing institutions,” they wrote.(p. 106).

They also called for a specific Amendment, one which would revert the Constitutional balance back to something more resembling the failed Articles of Confederation. Martin and Meckler wrote, “We need to restore the balance intended by the original Constitution. We need a constitutional amendment providing that if three-quarters of the states pass a law repealing or modifying a federal statute, their change is binding on the federal government.”(p.107)

Nor was the February anniversary event the first time that Tea Party Patriots announced their intentions to go after the 16th Amendment.

Just days after the government shutdown/debt-ceiling debacle, on November 21, 2013, Tea Party Patriots first revealed their support for a congressional bill to repeal the 16th Amendment. “The only way to reform the IRS in a meaningful and lasting manner is to repeal the underlying Constitutional amendment that allowed for the creation of 67,000 plus pages of regulations,” Said Martin. “It is time to start over and Congressman Bridenstine’s Bill to repeal the 16th Amendment is the place to start,” added the group’s media release.

Presently, Bridenstine's bill, HJR 140, has eleven co-sponsors and has been referred to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Civil Justice.

With national attention still focused on the previous Tea Party failure, the announcement went largely unnoticed, as was the creation of a new coalition effort to repeal the 16th Amendment. Last September, Tea Party Patriots joined Americans for Fair Taxation, Americans for Limited Government, and Competitive Governance Action to form the Coalition to Repeal the 16th Amendment (Repeal16.org). The new coalition claims that, “Repeal 16 is founded on the proposition that the 16th Amendment establishing the federal income tax was a radical social experiment launched 100 years ago that has now grown into a Frankenstein monster.” In one of the few mentions of the new coalition, Politico noted that the firm of Phillip Stutts & Company Inc. was hired to run the digital and public affairs efforts for the coalition group.

Regardless of whether or not the Tax Day push to repeal the 16th Amendment serves to move the bill through Congress, the Tea Party Patriots have been laying the groundwork for the potential next step, an Article V Constitutional Convention.

The Tea Party Push for a Constitutional Convention

An Article V Convention, also called a Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution, or a Convention of the States, is one of two alternative procedures for proposing amendments to the United States Constitution described in Article Five of the Constitution (The other method is a vote by two-thirds the members of each house of Congress). An Article V Convention is triggered when two-thirds of the states file applications to demand it.

The Article V Convention method has never been used to amend the Constitution. One reason: the high bar necessary to call a Convention. Additionally, as Martin and Meckler alluded to in their book, such a Convention would have no limitations. Anything could become an Amendment. Anything could be repealed.

With the Congressional route to passage of a Constitutional Amendmentstill a long-shot, Tea Party Patriots are already preparing their leadership for an alternative path to dramatically alter the Constitution.

The webinars were run by Bill Norton, the Tea Party Patriots National Support Team Constitutional Coordinator. Norton’s “expertise” on the Constitution comes from his other job a “Master Instructor” for the National Center for Constitutional Studies (NCCS), the group founded by long-time John Birch Society supporter W. Cleon Skousen. Before his death, Skousen acted as a mentor to Nelson.

Speaking to Tea Party groups across the country, Norton has promoted Skousen’s book, The Making of America. The book includes an essay on slavery that argued that, “abolitionist delay[ed-ed] the emancipation process,” and that the standard of treatment of slaves was “humane.” Further, a graphic in the 1986 edition of the book claims, “The economic system of slavery chained the slave owners almost as much as the slaves.”

During the first webinar, Norton outlining the rationale for the special symposium, “Tea Party Patriots over the last couple of years certainly heard a lot about Article V, both pro and con, for and against, an Article V convention – an amending convention. And so we figured it would be a good idea, as the conversation continues to gather more and more interest, we thought it would be a good idea to gather some great information to present to our local coordinators and other people involved in the Tea Party movement.”

Nelson added, “I didn’t think that people were ready for an Article V convention, because I didn’t necessarily believe that the people understood natural law principles enough to engage in a discussion to alter our Constitution. My views have changed a bit. I do believe that the people are capable of becoming educated and I believe that just like in the founding era, some of the catalysts—the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation and Constitutional Confederation—those events spurred public education and made it so people were very interested in learning about the Constitution and more about fundamental principles, or as the founders called them, ‘first principles’.” He concluded that he was now leaning towards an Article V convention.

The Tea Party Patriots Article V Convention effort was met with derision by some far-right allies, most notably the John Birch Society and the Eagle Forum, both of which have opposed the idea for decades.

That hasn't stopped Tea Party Patriots from moving forward, nor has it deterred other national Tea Party factions from getting into the act.

Over at Tea Party Nation, founder and proponent of eliminating much of the 14th Amendment, Judson Phillips wrote on April 4, “Is a Constitutional Convention coming? Could be.” And on the Tea Party Nation website, Magnus Colorado of San Antonio, Texas echoed, “We the People must use Article V to repeal the 14th, 16th and 17th amendment which removes the MONEY AND POWER from DC . . . and puts it back in the hands of our State legislatures . . . If we do not act they will have usurped the entire Constitutional LIMITS one court decision piled on the next and little by little the The Republic is gone. FOREVER.” Mr. Colorado is also a leader in a group called the Article V Project to Restore Liberty.

The scheme has also been percolating inside the Patriot Action Network. James from Carlisle, Pennsylvania wrote on the Tea Party group's website, “A wise man once said when life gives you lemons then make lemonade. So it is for the reelection of Obama. Now I’m going out against the status quo as I always do and say that yes, the left controls the cities and those voting blocks, mostly minority, cancels out your vote. But I think that given the choice between Romney and Obama, dumb and dumber that there was no choice. Elections are about differences. Whoever you liked, Reagan or Carter, everyone can agree that there was a sharp difference between the two. Was there a difference between the Obama and Romney? ... So here is the lemonade. I once wrote about an Article V Constitutional Convention where our Constitution could be amended. Crazy talk huh? Consider that if all of you that put an effort into the primary for Ron Paul and those that supported Romney and even many on the left put that same effort into an Article V Convention then most likely that legislation would be on Governor Corbett’s desk in Harrisburg. It might even appear as a ballot question in Maryland by next year.” The 1776 Tea Party (aka TeaParty.org) also looks to be supporting the effort, though the group is spending more time on efforts to impeach President Obama.

Perhaps due to their ties with the John Birch Society (which IREHR documented in 2011) the FreedomWorks response has been mixed. On their site, FreedomWorks staff have both promoted JBS events deploring the idea, as well as listing Article V promotional events.

While a number of local Tea Party groups have also jumped on the bandwagon, not all groups are happy. For instance, the New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition warned that the purpose of the Article V Convention is to “disarm Americans.” They’ve teamed up with the Birchers to hold press conferences to loudly oppose a “Con-Con.”

Right, Left, Con-Con

National Tea Party groups are playing catch-up to the growing call on the far-right for an Article V Convention. On the Right, talk of a Constitutional Convention (Or Con-Con for short) has been growing since the re-election of President Obama. Talk-show hosts Glenn Beck and Mark Levin have promoted various versions of a Constitutional Convention. In February, David Barton, the theocrat pseudo-historian behind the Christian Right, anti-Separation of Church and State efforts threw his support behind an Article V Convention of the States.

In addition there are several other Tea Party-linked groups pushing for an Article V Convention of the States. The most notable groups are the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Convention of the States (COS).

Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and colleagues, the American Legislative Exchange Council calls itself “the nation’s largest, non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators.” In reality, the secretive organization, which includes nearly 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate members, serves as a clearinghouse for model far-right legislation. The group’s legislative priorities have included voter suppression laws, rolling back civil right legislation, privatization of public education, repeal of Obamacare, breaking unions, deregulation of industry, and more. ALEC is perhaps most notorious for working with the National Rifle Association to craft the model “Stand Your Ground” legislation that empowered George Zimmerman to kill Trayvon Martin because Zimmerman felt threatened.

Among the ten current ALEC initiatives, the “Restore the Balance” initiative includes the call for an Article V Convention. On the group’s website, they note, “Our Founders knew the importance of checks and balances. In the United States Constitution, they outlined one of the most important roles states have in keeping the federal government in check. Under Article V, states are granted the right to require Congress to call a convention of the states, during which states can propose amendments to the Constitution.”

The website also includes the slick ALEC publication, Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers, which includes model Article V application legislation that state legislators can easily adapt and introduce back home.

In the foreword to the Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States handbook, Indiana State Senator Jim Buck, who chairs the ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force, wrote,

Time is running out. Our nation is trillions of dollars in debt without a credible plan to stop spending. The battle in Congress has escalated to a point where politics outweighs the cost of our economic future, and there is little hope our nation’s leaders will make the tough choices that need to be made in order to reign in our debt and revive our economy. Fortunately, there is a solution outside of Congress—a solution that Professor Rob Natelson outlines in this Handbook.

Our Founders knew the importance of checks and balances. In the United States Constitution, they enumerated one of the most important roles states have in keeping the federal government in check. Under Article V, states are granted the right to require Congress to call a convention of the states, during which states can propose amendments to the Constitution.

As ALEC heads into its Spring Task Force Summit in Kansas City, Missouri on May 1-2, IREHR will be closely watching to see how high the Article V Convention issue appears on the ALEC 2014 agenda.

The other notable group calling for an Article V solution is the Convention of the States, a project of Citizens for Self-Governance. The group’s national leadership includes ex-Tea Party Patriots leader, Mark Meckler, and Michael P. Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Not all efforts calling for a Constitutional Convention are tied to the far-right. There’s the group, Call a Convention, CallaConvention.org, founded by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig which aims to stamp out political corruption by eliminating the corrosive impact of money in politics. There's the Compact for America, which includes Lessig and some Republican operatives. There's even a Left-leaning Con-Con group that spun-out of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In recent weeks, concern has surfaced on the far-right about the connections between Meckler and Lessig. The relationship between the two men has been used to argue that an Article V Convention was a Trojan horse for progressives.

Con-Con Gaining Steam

On March 6, both chambers of the Georgia legislature officially passed an Article V Application for a Convention of the States. Though many Constitutional scholars warn that it would be impossible to limit the scope of a Convention of the States, the Georgia resolution aims to restrict the convention to topics of limiting the power of the federal government and establishing term limits for federal officials.

“An Article V Convention of States would provide an opportunity for the citizens of this great nation to restore the balance of power between the states and the federal government,” Tea Party-backed Georgia State Rep. Buzz Brockway said in a statement. Georgia’s House voted 107-58 to pass the measure, SR 736, which previously had passed the state Senate 37-16.

The Georgia legislation was sponsored by several legislators with both Tea Party and ALEC ties. Brockway, the sole sponsor in the House has been a member of ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force. The sponsor of the bill in the State Senate, Cecil Staton, along with three of the bill’s five co-sponsors, have also been active in ALEC.

Far-right state legislators are heeding his call. Bills similar to Georgia's have passed at least one chamber in Alabama (House - HJR 49), Arizona (House), and Alaska (House - HJR 22), and it has been introduced in Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, and South Carolina.

As impossible as this Tea Party plan sounds, it should be noted that previous efforts have come extraordinarily close to victory.

As historian Thomas H. Neale describes in The Article V Convention for Proposing Constitutional Amendments: Historical Perspectives for Congress, while the obstacles to an Article V Convention are “daunting,” efforts to call an Article V Convention have nearly succeeded twice in the last fifty years. Reaction to a 1964 Supreme Court ruling over apportionment of state legislatures, and the drive for a balanced budget amendment in the 1980s, both came remarkably close to calling an Article V Convention.

In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. Sims that districts in both chambers of state legislatures must be generally equal in population, thus embracing the principle, “one person, one vote.” Opponents of the ruling made states-rights arguments against the changes to apportionment and expressed fears that it could lead to dominance of state governments by “urban interests.”

Some foes of the ruling urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to permit states to use additional factors to determine apportionment, but the effort came up short. Just months after the ruling, others chose the Article V Convention route. As Neale noted, “the General Assembly of the Council of State Governments published and circulated both a manual on the Article V Convention process for state legislatures and a model application for a convention. The first state applications for a convention to consider amendments on legislative apportionment were submitted in 1963, and by the 91st Congress (1969-1970), 33 states had filed Article V applications, just one short of the two-thirds necessary to trigger a convention.”

From 1975 to 1983, the conservative push for an Article V Convention for a balanced budget amendment also nearly succeeded. Supported by President Reagan, Article V Convention activists gained support from 32 states, just two short of the requisite needed. Momentum stalled, however, when Congress passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act in 1985, which claimed to serve the same purpose without the risk of a runaway convention.

Just as the call for an Article V Convention can move Congress to pass desired legislation, as in the case of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, the efforts can spur Congress to take initiative to amend the Constitution. As Neale notes, “The concerted action of states in calling for an Article V Convention with the ultimate purpose of convincing Congress to propose a particular amendment has been referred to as the ‘prodding effect,’ because the states are prodding Congress to take the initiative.”

Passage of the 17th Amendment, which allows for the U.S. Senators to be elected by the people rather than appointed by state legislatures (something which many Tea Partiers now oppose), was the most prominent example of the prodding effect. Efforts to call for an Article V Convention, and the fear of a “runaway convention” convinced Congress to act. It was passed in Congress and submitted to the states for ratification on May 13, 1912, and ratified by three-fourths of the states by April 8, 1913.

It shouldn't be possible for the Tea Party to simultaneously wrap themselves in the Constitution at the same time they campaign to take a chainsaw to it, yet that is precisely what they are doing. The Tea Party Patriots and other groups are quite serious about their desire to eliminate many different elements of the Constitution of keen interest to human rights activists. Everything from the equal protection and birthright citizenship provisions of the 14th Amendment, to the 15th Amendment's voting rights provisions, to the system of progressive taxation enabled by the 16th Amendment, to the 17th Amendment's direct election of Senators, are all on the table. The effort could literally re-define the nation.

It's definitely not rocket science. Unless human rights supporters take the threat seriously and begin organizing to confront these efforts (and the groups behind them) head-on, many essential rights and protections enumerated in the Constitution could be gone.

For years, white nationalists found themselves on the outside looking in, faces pressed against the glass to get a glimpse at the movement happenings at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But the times they are a changing. Not since Pat Buchanan’s racially-tinged insurgent campaign at the 1992 conference have white nationalists found a more hospitable environment in the halls of CPAC.

With the rise of the Tea Party, the doors to CPAC flew open wide in 2010. The same year that CPAC gave the “Ronald Reagan Award” to the Tea Party movement, the far-right John Birch Society, a group kept outside for decades, was allowed to co-sponsor the event for the first time. Others on the far-right were welcomed into the fold, and racist rhetoric about president Obama was allowed center stage. Just like that, CPAC became a white nationalist friendly zone.

Despite a more tightly controlled platform this year, the annual conservative confab did little to disabuse white nationalists of the notion that they were at home, particularly when leaders expressed racially-charged rhetoric and calls for nativist “death squads” were met with raucous cheers from the floor.

Even before the official kick-off of the most highly anticipated conservative event of the year, for the third year in a row CPAC was embroiled in a controversy involving white nationalist participation in the event.

As IREHR first alerted, the nativist English-only outfit, ProEnglish, led by a white nationalist, Robert Vandervoort, was allowed as an official exhibitor for the fourth year in a row. This despite the considerable controversy that erupted in 2012, when Vandervoort moderated a panel entitled "The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the Pursuit of Diversity is Weakening the American Identity" which also featured Peter Brimelow, editor of the white nationalist website VDARE; and John Derbyshire, a former contributing editor at National Review fired for racist columns, who now writes for VDARE.

Last year, CPAC not only included Vandervoort’s ProEnglish, it gave a platform to birthers, Islamophobes, nativists, and militia heroes. It even included a panel meant to teach conservatives how to defend themselves from charges that they are racist that devolved when the room shouted down a liberal black woman, and a white nationalist in the audience stood to demand justice for white voters and to argue that the slaves should have been grateful to slave owners for food and shelter. Repeated inclusion of these groups and the conservative sense of white dispossession popularized by the Tea Party beckoned white nationalists to CPAC like moths to a flame.

After the uproar of the last few years, the 2014 CPAC agenda was more tightly controlled. There were no panels attacking multiculturalism, no militia advocates like Richard Mack giving lectures, and most of the controversial Islamophobes and nativists weren’t invited back.

The main stage inside the vast Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor, Maryland was dominated this year by potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates: Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio, former Sen. Rick Santorum, Gov. Scott Walker, Gov. Chris Christie, Gov. Bobby Jindal, Gov. Rick Perry, former Gov. Sarah Palin, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Rep. Paul Ryan, and even Donald Trump. Much has been written about these speeches, little has been written on the deepening racial fault-lines and sense of white dispossession inside conservative circles.

One year after the GOP autopsy of the 2012 election pointed out the need to reach out to people of color, there was a panel on courting minorities at this year’s CPAC. The re-branding effort failed completely. As Brookings Institution Fellow John Hudak tweeted, “Most important #CPAC2014 panel. Topic: minority outreach. View: largely empty room.”

For all the talk of the so-called “civil war” between the Tea Party and the Republican establishment, there were few signs of this alleged split on display at CPAC. A rifle-wielding Mitch McConnell shared the same stage as Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin.

Tea Party and Tea Party-aligned groups dominated the CPAC 2014 sponsor list. Tea Party Patriots paid $110,000 to be one of just five top-level sponsors (along with the NRA). The Tea Party News Network, the news site of the newer faction, TheTeaParty.net, was a $25,000 supporting sponsor, as was the Heritage Foundation. And the Tea Party-aligned Americans for Prosperity was one of thirty different $9,000 participating sponsors. Even FreedomWorks, which had been invisible at CPAC for the last few years had a presenter at this year’s event. Tea Party themes, including opposition to the Affordable Care Act, guns, the war on the poor, and attacks on union rights were among the unifying themes of the conference.

Attendance at this year’s CPAC seemed down from previous years. Declining participation was reflected in the number of participants in the much-discussed CPAC presidential straw poll. This year, just 2,450 cast a vote. By comparison, 2,930 attendees cast ballots in 2013, 3,408 in 2012, and 3,742 in 2011. Significant ticket price increases may have been one reason that the participation of young people (under age 25) dropped from 54% in 2013 to 46% of the crowd this year. Also, the continuing conservative war on women may have contributed to the gender gap, with 63% of participants being men at CPAC 2014.

Clash over Nativism

One schism on full display at CPAC this year was over the issue of immigration. The American Conservative Union, the group responsible for CPAC, made sure that the only official panel on immigration exclusively featured immigration reform activists. Nativist groups were left off the agenda.

Mark Krikorian, of the nativist Center for Immigration Studies told the Washington Post, “You don’t have to read the tea leaves. Immigration skeptics have been pushed out by Al Cardenas, it’s right there out in the open.” While Rosemary Jenks of the nativist group, NumbersUSA, complained that the increased involvement of the business community in the annual conference has made CPAC a “kind of the corporate elite’s playground instead of [about] conservative principles.”

Despite the best efforts of Al Cardenas and the ACU to keep nativism out of the hall, anti-immigrant sentiment repeatedly reared its ugly head from the platform.

Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the groups that led the charge to block immigration reform last year, introduced Rep. Michele Bachmann. A roaring applause greeted Bachmann when she warned conservatives against seeking a bipartisan immigration plan. “The last thing conservatives should do is help the president pass his number-one goal, and that’s Amnesty,” she said.

Birther conspiracist Donald Trump took the main stage to blast Marco Rubio for wanting to “let everyone in.” He added, “Immigration. We’re either a country or we’re not. We either have borders or we don’t.” Echoing Trump was another who has nodded to birther themes. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin declared, “No Republican lawbreaker can get elected promising… rewarding lawbreakers—Amnesty.”

None of these could compare to Ann Coulter, who used much of her debate with Mickey Kaus of The Daily Caller to lash out against the “browning of America.”

Coulter told the crowd that the reason Democrats favor immigration reform is “because they need brand new voters, just warm bodies, more votes," she said. "Amnesty goes through, and the Democrats have 30 million new voters. I just don't think Republicans have an obligation to forgive law-breaking just because the Democrats need another 30 million voters."

Coulter reached a crescendo of nativist bigotry when she declared, “Amnesty is forever, and you gotta vote for the Republicans one more time, but just make it clear, ‘If you pass Amnesty, that’s it. It’s over. Then we organize the death squads for the people who wrecked America.’’’

Coulter reached a crescendo of nativist bigotry when she declared, “Amnesty is forever, and you gotta vote for the Republicans one more time, but just make it clear, ‘If you pass Amnesty, that’s it. It’s over. Then we organize the death squads for the people who wrecked America.’’’

Circling Vultures: the Uninvited and the Unconference

After experiencing his own problems after a 2012 CPAC appearance, VDARE’s Peter Brimelow complained from the sidelines that “’Official’ CPAC topics are tellingly bland,” and that the conference was under “much tighter ideological control. But also price-gouging.” Brimelow noted that “ideologically, the result is secession” and pointed people to two shadow conferences: “The Uninvited II: National Security Action Conference” organized by Breitbart.com; and a National Policy Institute “Unconference.”

With the sponsorship of Breitbart.com, nativists and Islamophobes excluded from CPAC 2014 held their own summit at a hotel around the block at the Westin Washington National Harbor.
“The Uninvited II” featured Islamophobes like Frank Gaffney, nativists like Jenks, Krikorian and Phyllis Schlafly, and convicted criminal James O’Keefe, alongside a slew of Tea Party legislators including Congressmen Steve King, Mo Brooks, Louie Gohmert, Jim Bridenstine, and Trent Franks, and Senators Ted Cruz and David Vitter.

Rather than moving to a different venue like the Breitbart.com event, the green-light given to ProEnglish appears to have encouraged white nationalists to hold their own rump event at the same facility. As Josh Glasstetter first noted, the NPI “Unconference” was organized by the National Policy Institute (NPI), a white nationalist “think tank” whose stated mission is to “elevate the consciousness of whites, ensure our biological and cultural continuity, and protect our civil rights.”

NPI director, Richard Spencer, noted that “for years, supporters have urged NPI to make an appearance at CPAC. This year, we’re doing it.”

The rationale, according to Spencer, “people don't really attend CPAC for what happens on stage. They go to meet people. And CPAC is a captive audience of individuals who self-identify as conservative. Our ideas resonate with many of them; and most all of them, I would guess, have a gut feeling that something is terribly wrong with America.”

Hoping for revolt over immigration, Spencer added “At the very least, CPAC is an opportunity for us to demonstrate to attendees the necessity of choosing a different path than the ‘Taxes Cuts Will Solve Everything’ agenda that has defined the conservative movement for decades.” Spencer told Lauren Fox of U.S. News and World Report that he is confident there are plenty of folks at CPAC who sympathize with his cause. He’s even planning on doing a little recruiting. “I won’t reveal their identities, be we have many moles in the system. A lot of them live in D.C.” Spencer added.

Spencer attended panels he felt were “relevant to our movement,” and on the second day of CPAC, May 7, he hosted a “private gathering for friends, supporters, and interested attendees” at the Old Hickory Steak House located within the Gaylord facility. The Unconference featured a special guest, Jared Taylor of the other white nationalist “think tank,” American Renaissance. (The same group for which Robert Vandervoort created a Chicago chapter).

Like his white nationalist cohort Peter Brimelow, Jared Taylor was unimpressed with the proceedings at CPAC this year. “CPAC organizers seem to think the country can turn into a multi-culti hash and still be the United States,” he noted. There was one voice that Taylor applauded, however, Ann Coulter. Taylor praised Coulter’s vision of “death squads” if immigration reform passed, calling it “remarkable.”

Spencer’s National Policy Institute also loved Coulter’s speech, tweeting “Ann Coulter channeled @VDARE at #CPAC2014 and she's, apparently, the conservatives's heart and soul.”
Whatever nominal efforts the American Conservative Union staff made to narrow the frame and keep the troublemakers out of CPAC this year, clearly it failed. White nationalism, nativism, Islamophobia and other bigotry found new ways in.

Therein lies the problem. You can’t passively brush bigotry aside. It must be confronted. White nationalists have found a voice and an audience in the conservative movement. Until CPAC organizers, and the leaders they put on-stage, publically stand up and wholeheartedly reject the politics of bigotry, panels on minority outreach will continue to be empty, and white nationalists will roam the halls looking for new recruits to join Ann Coulter’s death squads to enforce their hegemony.